- MD: Bank robbery suspect allegedly steals kitten, asks employee to hold it before demanding cash
Source: Fox News
“Not every accomplice gets a say in the matter. A Maryland man allegedly stole a 3-month-old kitten from a pet store, carried her into a nearby bank and asked an employee to hold the animal moments before handing a teller a note demanding cash, according to police and a local cat rescue. The kitten, named Magnolia, was found unharmed after Prince George’s County police arrested the suspect. Beltsville Community Cats later joked on Facebook that her brief ‘life of crime’ was over. … The rescue later posted on Facebook that Magnolia was recovered safely, and she had bonded with the bank manager during the ordeal.” (07/14/26)
- CA: One dead, three missing after boat carrying mostly family members sinks near Alcatraz Island
Source: ABC 7 Eyewitness News
“One person died, three people were missing and 16 were rescued from the waters off San Francisco after a pontoon boat sank Tuesday afternoon while carrying mostly family members as part of a memorial service, authorities said. Crews arriving on the scene near Alcatraz Island found a three-deck pontoon vessel almost fully under water with the motor still running and leaking fuel, San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen said. … Officials say they’re still piecing together exactly what caused the three-story, 50-foot pontoon boat to sink.” (07/15/26)
- UK: Regime unveils plans for social media curfew for older teens – but it’s “voluntary”
Source: SFGate
“The British government announced plans Wednesday to introduce a six-hour social media curfew from midnight for 16- and 17-year-olds — though they will be able to override the proposed default setting. In its latest attempt to reduce the risks of online harm for children, Britain’s Labour government also said that features that can keep users scrolling for longer, such as videos that automatically play one after another, will also be switched off by default for older teenagers. The planned restrictions come a month after the government unveiled a social media ban for under-16s, which is expected to cover platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but not messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal, from next spring.” (07/15/26)
- Groups sue FDA in effort to revive tobacco smoking
Source: New York Times
“A coalition of public health groups sued the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, seeking to block a new policy that could allow a wave of new flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches to enter the market without completing the required scientific review. … Led by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the American Lung Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Academy of Pediatrics.” [editor’s note: You know what’s already “allowed?” Actual tobacco. Apparently these groups are worried about the diseases they claim to oppose going away – TLK] (07/14/26)
- China: Economic growth falls sharply, missing target
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“China’s economic growth slowed sharply between the start of April and end of June as weak domestic demand and the Iran war’s impact on oil prices overshadowed the country’s strong exports. Official gross domestic product (GDP) figures showed the world’s second largest economy grew in the second quarter by 4.3%, below Beijing’s annual target, and after a 5% rise in the first quarter. … The announcement represents the first full quarter of GDP data since the start of the Iran war on 28 February and marks the lowest quarterly expansion since the end of 2022, as China was emerging from its strict Covid-19 restrictions.” (07/15/26)
- South Korean company paid Trump $2 million amid trade investigation
Source: Washington Post
“President Donald Trump’s holding company took a $2 million payment last year from a top investor in a South Korean aluminum firm as the company was fighting a trade case before Trump’s Commerce Department, highlighting the president’s business ties to companies with business before his administration. The payment from Base Co. LTD was part of a ‘letter of intent’ and a ‘nonrefundable development fee,’ according to the president’s latest financial disclosure. The New York Times first reported the transaction. Base Group is a key shareholder in Korea Aluminium, one of several companies that the Commerce Department has accused of circumventing duties imposed on Chinese aluminum. The company has also had a years-long business relationship with the Trump family business, selling Trump-branded wine in South Korea.” (07/14/26)
- Trump reveals when US military will leave Iraq after 23-year occupation
Source: Fox News
“President Donald Trump said Tuesday the United States no longer believes it needs a military presence in Iraq, arguing Iran has been weakened enough for Baghdad to stand on its own as the U.S.-led coalition mission approaches its planned Sept. 30 conclusion. … Trump said the U.S. partnership with Iraq would shift away from military cooperation toward investment and energy development, while [Iraqi Prime Minister Ali] al-Zaidi said: ‘The 30th of September, the U.S. forces would be out of Iraq. While U.S. companies will be inside Iraq.'” (07/14/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-reveals-when-us-military-leave-iraq-after-23-year-mission
- UK: Politician was killed in “targeted attack,” police say
Source: Seattle Times
“British counterterrorism police on Tuesday said Ann Widdecombe, a right-wing politician who was killed last week, had been the victim of a ‘targeted attack.’ Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home in Haytor, in Devon, southwestern England, on Thursday, having sustained serious injuries. A 28-year-old British man from Rotherham, a town in northern England around 270 miles away from the crime scene, was arrested on suspicion of murder on Saturday. On Monday, the police said they were also holding him ‘on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.'” (07/14/26)
- CA: After lawsuit, ICE gang pauses construction of Bay Area concentration camp
Source: SFGate
“The federal government agreed to temporarily hold off on construction of a planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement [concentration camp] in Northern California. The voluntary pause until Sept. 9 comes after the California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County officials sued the Trump administration last month to block the facility from being developed near Gilroy. The lawsuit remains ongoing. … Community members and advocates for immigrants swiftly opposed the project. ICE has consistently looked to increase its detention capacity in California, where eight [concentration camps] can now hold a combined 9,000 people, though the state has long been a thorn in the agency’s side.” (07/14/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/lawsuit-ice-pauses-construction-bay-area-22345386.php
- US Judge Blocks Trump Regime’s Visa Limits for Social Media Researchers
Source: US News & World Report
“A federal judge on Tuesday blocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing a policy that targets foreign nationals who study disinformation and hate speech on social media for visa denials and deportation. Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington sided with the Coalition for Independent Technology Research in finding that the administration’s policy likely unlawfully burdens the speech of non-citizen researchers in the United States in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The group’s lawsuit alleged that the U.S. State Department, while claiming it is fighting online censorship that Trump’s allies have argued has affected conservative speech on social media, had been engaged in a far-reaching campaign of censorship targeting researchers and anti-disinformation advocates.” (07/14/26)
- America’s Gerontocracy Goes Deeper than Aging Politicians
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe“[I]t’s easy to understand why many have increasingly come to consider the United States to be a gerontocracy, or a society ruled by old people. As with just about anything online, there are sophisticated and unsophisticated versions of this observation. The unsophisticated version simply points to the multitude of examples of politicians remaining in office long after most people would have retired from just about any line of work and concludes that the prevalence of exceptionally elderly politicians is hampering the government’s ability to function properly. … The more sophisticated version of the ‘America is a gerontocracy’ narrative focuses less on the politicians themselves and more on what the government is doing. … government programs are actively transferring vast amounts of wealth from younger generations to older generations who are, on average, much wealthier.” (07/15/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/americas-gerontocracy-goes-deeper-aging-politicians
- America Is Failing Its Own Free Speech Standards
Source: The Next Move
by Sarah McLaughlin“You’re relaxing with a cup of tea, winding down from your day, and thinking about tomorrow’s errands. And then you hear a ring at the doorbell. Followed quickly by another. And another. When you finally open the door, you’re shocked to see not a neighbor or a delivery driver, but a federal agent. He knows what you said about the government on Instagram, and he’s here giving you notice to shut up. A chilling encounter like this might dissuade even the most dogged critic from speaking their mind. In the United States, home of the First Amendment—a uniquely robust protection against censorship compared with other democracies’ rules—this kind of incursion should be unimaginable. These days, it isn’t, as a new lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials makes painfully clear.” (07/15/26)
https://www.thenextmove.org/p/america-is-failing-its-own-free-speech
- Takes time to build liberty cathedral
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“There are times you’ll begin, or join already-in-progress, a project and discover it’s bigger, more difficult, and is going to take longer than you expected. Often, much longer. Sometimes you’ll realize it won’t be completed in your lifetime – if ever. And it’s still worth it. Your part is to be a vital link in a long chain of people down through the years, working toward something you’ll never see the benefit of. Think of all those nameless laborers who helped build awe-inspiring Medieval cathedrals. Such is the case with spreading liberty. It turns out, spreading a love for liberty is a bigger job than I’d thought. A lot harder, too. As many before me had also discovered.” (07/15/26)
- An Iran Agreement Honored Only in the Breach
Source: The Atlantic
by Vivian Salama“The U.S.-Iran war was supposed to be over when President Trump signed a memorandum of understanding last month at a dinner table in the Lower Gallery of Versailles. But Trump has a famously flexible definition of what constitutes a binding contract, Iran feels that it has little to lose from further hostilities, and the two nations have essentially remained at war ever since. The agreement was designed to make permanent a cease-fire and to usher in a negotiating period of up to 60 days to settle the many disputes at the root of the conflict. About halfway through the 60-day window, the memorandum’s 14 terms have been honored almost entirely in the breach. The only clause that took immediate effect that has not been violated is the one that says the two sides will keep talking. (Even that requires an asterisk …)” (07/15/26)
- Donald Trump Is Not a Liar
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Thomas Eddlem“President Donald Trump, broadly speaking, is not at base a liar. Sure, almost every word out of his mouth is a lie. You don’t have to go back to his marriage vows to prove this; a simple survey of his 2024 campaign promises versus his results during the first eighteen months of his second term show it. He promised no foreign wars and bombed ten countries; he promised to release the Epstein Files and fought it; he promised to end warrantless FISA searches and lobbied to keep them going; he promised DOGE and tariff rebates to the American people and abandoned both, etc. Presidents telling lies are nothing new; they’ve become an American tradition. But I learned an important lesson a few years back about how Trump in particular is different from a now-defunct podcast called Unfilter. The podcast hosts posited that Trump was not a liar but instead is a bullshitter.” (07/15/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/donald-trump-is-not-a-liar
- Can We Lose the Same War Twice? With Trump, Anything’s Possible
Source: The New Republic
by Joe Cirincione“The first phase of Donald Trump’s war on Iran ended in defeat and humiliation. Iran emerged battered but stronger, with two new weapons: control of the Strait of Hormuz and a demonstrated drone and missile force that can cripple the economies of its Persian Gulf neighbors and wreak havoc on U.S. bases. Both are new instruments of power more usable than nuclear weapons. … So why did Trump restart the war? As Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write in their new book, Regime Change, ‘Unlike recent Presidents, Trump had shown he was entirely comfortable using extraordinary presidential powers on a whim.’ Those extraordinary powers include the ability to launch waves of destructive attacks solely on his order. But these attacks, now numbering hundreds of sorties, are pointless. If it were possible to bomb Iran into submission, it would have worked the first time.” (07/15/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/213066/iran-war-trump-lose-twice
- Why Planned Parenthood Should Not Receive Federal Funds
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance“Planned Parenthood should not receive federal funds for one simple reason: it is unconstitutional. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the federal government to spend one penny on sexual and reproductive health care or any other form of health care. Planned Parenthood should not receive federal funds for any reason because it is not the proper role of government at any level to fund sexual and reproductive health care or any other form of health care. This means it should not fund agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); or services like community health centers, vaccinations, family planning, medical research, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, or nutrition guidelines.” (07/15/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/why-planned-parenthood-should-not-receive-federal-funds/
- On the Importance of First Principles
Source: Law & Liberty
by Roger Pilon“It’s good that [Tal] Fortgang has gone after what he calls the counterintuitive Nejaime/Siegel democracy-promoting approach to protecting unenumerated rights, which is likely going nowhere. But his critique is itself a good example of what happens when a critic jumps into the middle of a complex issue and then tries to work his way out without ever going to the first principles of the matter. True, Fortgang seems to have something of a first principle, at least by implication. It’s that democracy trumps liberty, mostly. Problem is, that’s not the Constitution’s first principle …” (07/15/26)
https://lawliberty.org/on-the-importance-of-first-principles/
- Liberals Have Relaxed About Trump Because They Trust Him To Keep The Wars Going
Source: Caitlin Johnstone
by Caitlin Johnstone“Have you noticed how the liberal establishment hasn’t been nearly as emotional and outraged about Trump’s second term as they were about his first? Now that he’s the president who bombed Iran, the entire western political/media class is cool with him. … They’re no longer worried that he’s going to promote ‘isolationist’ foreign policy and roll back the US war machine. He went to war with Iran, so they like him now. Because they know he’s fully compliant.” (07/15/26)
- An Evergreen Warning About Social Security
Source: The Daily Economy
by Thomas Savidge“As Social Security reaches its ninety-first anniversary this August, it’s running out of room for evasion. The 2026 Trustees Report projects Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund will be depleted by the fourth quarter of 2032, after which dedicated revenue would only cover 78 percent of scheduled benefits. On a combined basis with Disability Insurance, reserves would run out in late 2034, with 83 percent payable then and 65 percent by 2100. The current schedule and financing cannot survive under existing law. That is the setting for Romina Boccia and Ivane Nachkebia’s Reimagining Social Security. Nearly a year after its release, the book is more relevant than ever.” (07/15/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/an-evergreen-warning-about-social-security/
- Alzheimer’s stole pieces of our lives. A new treatment is giving us a fighting chance
Source: Fox News
by Dr. Brent Beasley“Millions of Americans are rightfully terrified of Alzheimer’s disease. They have witnessed its devastating impact on their families and friends. But we, five patients from different corners of the country, offer our stories to bring hope to others. We reclaimed our lives from this devastating disease by getting diagnosed early enough to benefit from new anti-amyloid treatments. Our lives show these new treatments can slow progression and add meaningful time. Like millions of Americans, we followed expert guidelines to reduce the risk of cognitive decline: exercising regularly, following healthy diets, staying mentally and socially active, and building lives around serving our families and communities. And still, Alzheimer’s came for us. … For us, treatment has been a lifeline.” (07/15/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/alzheimers-stole-pieces-lives-new-treatment-giving-fighting-chance
- The Geometry of Advantage
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Harshit Singh“Anyone who has spent time in a group project recognizes an uncomfortable pattern. A small number of people end up carrying most of the work, while the rest contribute unevenly at best. Look at almost any workplace, and the same pattern emerges: a handful of employees are responsible for a surprisingly large share of what actually gets done. Walk through any city, and a few restaurants stay full while most sit half-empty. On streaming platforms, a small number of songs absorb most of the listening. Seen once, it looks like a coincidence. Seen everywhere, it starts to look like a law. That’s because it is one.” (07/15/26)
- Bernie and AOC Are Taking On AI. Only One of Them Is Doing It Right.
Source: The Nation
by Paris Marx“The real risks of AI are not the existential ones that people like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei obsess about and that Sanders has taken to repeating. Instead, they stem from the more tangible effects AI has on regular people’s lives: how dependence on chatbots can affect cognition and critical thinking, create addiction that isolates people from their human networks, and can even coach them down harmful paths of self-harm and suicide. That’s not to mention how AI has polluted the information environment, enabled the creation of nonconsensual deepfakes, and is actively degrading cultural production. While she may have been an ally of Sanders on the data center moratorium, Ocasio-Cortez does not seem to have fallen for the deceptive narratives of the AI industry in the way that he has.” (07/15/26)
- Brave business leaders on Brexit
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“In the 2016 Brexit referendum, the loudest institutional voices, the CBI, the IMF, the Treasury, most of the FTSE 100, and Downing Street itself, were all lined up behind Remain. Business leaders who broke ranks knew they would be cast as reckless or self-interested, and all three took real flak for it. Dyson in particular was accused of hypocrisy given that some of his manufacturing was already overseas, and commentators seized on that. Martin faced boycott calls and mockery in the press. Going against your own trade bodies and much of the commentariat, in a campaign that quickly became personal took some courage.” (07/15/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/brave-business-leaders-brexit
- In Defense of Building the Data Centers
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Erick-Woods Erickson“New York just became the first state in the country to sign a moratorium on data centers. I want you to sit with that, because it tells you everything about the two paths in front of us. One path builds the infrastructure that runs the next fifty years of the American economy. The other talks itself into a moral panic, bans the future, and then acts surprised when the jobs and the money show up in somebody else’s state. I am here to defend the data centers, and I want to walk you through why, because most of the fear you are hearing is manufactured.” (07/15/26)
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-building-the-data-centers
- Has Automation Stolen What It Means to Be Human?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jessica Rose“I guess there are subdivisions of automatic devices that can be split based on function. Some devices help and are ‘non-invasive’ in terms of imposing on the human part of humanity. Some devices are quite ‘invasive’ in this same way. Many – if not all – devices made in the last century fall into the latter subdivision. I think of these as inflictions upon humanity masquerading as ‘convenience’, as opposed to devices that make our human lives better. Many examples exist and play a daily role in our human lives today.” (07/15/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/has-automation-stolen-what-it-means-to-be-human/
- Nuclear Power
Source: Townhall
by John Stossel“A few years ago, nuclear power looked doomed. Plants were shutting down. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won applause bragging about closing a nuclear plant ’14 years ahead of schedule.’ ‘Why would they applaud?’ asks former nuclear engineer Ray Rothrock in my new video. ‘They shut down New York’s finest source of clean energy.’ Rothrock has met with presidents, trying to persuade them to embrace nuclear power, but ‘nothing was ever addressed.’ Until now.” (07/15/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2026/07/15/nuclear-power-n2679445
- Strait Gangsterism
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“ran is being swept by a wave of nationalism, while the United States is being swept by a wave of explosive diarrhea—do you ever get the feeling that Hegelian capital-H History is laughing at you? In a war with a filthy little junta in Tehran, Donald Trump has managed to make the United States of America the bad guy. If you are looking for a quick-and-easy definition of shmuck, there you go. Of course, it doesn’t help that it is an illegal and immoral war being waged by an incompetent game show host. … Trump may declare total victory twice a week, but in the real world the likeliest outcome is one that is economically and strategically worse for the United States than the status quo ante bellum.” (07/15/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/donald-trump-gangster-strait-hormuz-iran/
- By Blessing Corruption, Todd Blanche Has Disqualified Himself From the Job He Wants
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum“‘I’m guessing I’ll be in line,’ former FBI Director James Comey quipped after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a ‘settlement agreement’ between President Donald Trump and the IRS that included $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for targets of ‘lawfare and weaponization.’ Comey’s joke encompasses two reasons why the Senate should not confirm Blanche as attorney general: a flagrantly unconstitutional prosecution and a brazenly corrupt arrangement that delivered huge favors to Trump, his family, and his followers at taxpayers’ expense. Blanche’s participation in both of those scams demonstrated his eagerness to please his boss, which explains why Trump nominated him to replace Pam Bondi. But that same tendency should alarm anyone who thinks the attorney general should pursue justice rather than the president’s personal agenda.” (07/15/26)
- The Real Lesson of America’s Decades-Long Conflict with Iran
Source: The American Conservative
by Sina Toossi“Donald Trump entered office promising to end America’s endless wars. Instead, he chose a war openly aimed at regime change in Iran that has predictably become a quagmire, trapping the United States in an open-ended cycle of tit-for-tat strikes, economic blockades, and escalating confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz, with no plausible military path to victory. The immediate crisis is dangerous enough. The larger problem is that Washington is once again doubling down on a decades-long strategic obsession with Iran that has repeatedly produced the opposite of what American policymakers sought to achieve.” (07/15/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-real-lesson-of-americas-decades-long-conflict-with-iran/
- ICE Is Still Killing People. Susan Is Still Concerned.
Source: Common Dreams
by Abby Zimet“In their second fatal shooting of the wrong person in just days – and as his three-year-old daughter watched – ICE thugs murdered a young Colombian husband and father legally working in Biddeford, ME for simply trying to driving away. … [US Senator Susan] Collins, forever on the wrong and bloody side of history and drunken rapists, was the deciding vote last month to approve the extra, mind-boggling $75 billion in ICE funding, though most Mainers want to see it abolished. Last year, after the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, she voted against both language seeking to curtail further violence and funding for mandatory body cameras, which most thugs are clearly not wearing anyway.” (07/14/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/further/ice-is-still-killing-people-susan-is-still-concerned
- Voters: The military makes us feel safe but not sure it’s worth a trillion
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Greenburg & William Hartung“There is a growing disconnect between how American voters think about safety and how Washington spends money in the name of national security. In a recent poll conducted by ReThink Media and the Costs of War Project at Brown University, when voters were asked what contributes to safety in daily life, they were more likely to point to friends and family or first responders than to the U.S. military. Social policies and public services, such as healthcare, education, and housing, also had significant support, with 68% of respondents stating these contributed somewhat or greatly to everyday safety. Yet at the very moment voters describe safety in these broad social terms, the Trump administration is proposing a $1.5 trillion national security budget and arguing that domestic priorities must take a back seat to military spending.” (07/15/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/american-military-spending/
- Trump’s Iran Trap
Source: Antiwar.com
by Timothy Hopper“The latest U.S. strikes on Iran have put one of Donald Trump’s defining promises under pressure. He returned to the White House insisting that America could no longer keep paying for other countries’ wars. During the campaign, he pointed to trillions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan while roads, factories, and communities at home were neglected. A long conflict with Iran would make that promise difficult to keep. The question is not whether the United States can defeat Iran conventionally. It can. The harder question is whether Washington can contain the fallout, absorb the cost, and keep a limited operation from widening. Presidents rarely stumble because their forces cannot win a battle. Trouble begins when war grows, bills rise, and its purpose becomes harder to explain.” (07/15/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/timothy_hopper/2026/07/14/trumps-iran-trap/
- The Blueprint for a Bigger Medical Bureaucracy
Source: Independent Institute
by Raymond J March“A new report from Unleash Prosperity, a free-market policy group, makes a bold and welcome claim: reforming the FDA could unlock trillions of dollars. The authors’ biggest target isn’t safety testing. It’s the years the FDA spends proving a drug actually works. Trim one year off that process, they estimate, and we generate more than $10 trillion in value to patients and producers. Trim six years, and the figure climbs past $60 trillion. … It takes roughly a decade for a new drug to clear the agency. Most of that time isn’t spent proving the drug is safe. It’s spent proving it works. Developing one now costs nearly $880 million on average, closer to $1.2 billion for cancer and eye treatments, and about 90 percent of trials fail. Meanwhile, the report notes, China has cut its lab-to-trial timelines by 50 to 70 percent and runs clinical trials 50 to 60 percent cheaper than we do.” (07/14/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/14/blueprint-bigger-medical-bureaucracy/
- Mamdani is pandering to entitled voters who splash out $8 for coffee but can’t handle canceling a Starz subscription
Source: New York Post
by Rikki Schlott“Zohran Mamdani wants to be a knight in shining armor, coming to save New Yorkers from … their streaming subscriptions. The mayor’s office has announced a new city rule that promises to make canceling a subscription as easy as signing up for one. Do New Yorkers seriously need the government to step in and save them from their streaming subscription after a free trial renews? Let’s be adults here. This new rule, touted by the administration as a pillar of ‘Mayor Mamdani’s affordability agenda,’ is part of the larger phenomenon that propelled him into office: pandering to the entitled. For too many Mamdani supporters, the affordability crisis isn’t about the price of eggs. It’s about their inability to exercise the most basic requirements of fiscal responsibility without the government swooping in to hold their hand through the process.” (07/14/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/opinion/mayor-mamdani-is-pandering-to-entitled-voters-again/
- The Iran War Might End Fossil Fuel Dependence
Source: The UnPopulist
by Tibita Kaneene“The most consequential thing that the war between the United States and Iran revealed has nothing to do with missiles or centrifuges. The war has shown just how much of the world’s economy now turns on the unchecked decisions of individual men: an American president who could start the war without asking Congress, and a Tehran regime that could respond by putting a fifth of the world’s oil beyond anyone’s reach. … The largest oil and gas supply disruption in history is far from over, but its strongest legacy might well end the dominance of fossil fuels.” (07/14/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-iran-war-might-end-fossil-fuel
- Zelensky’s Strange Trip to the NATO Summit
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Snider“Last week, on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Volodymyr Zelensky repeated his demand that Ukraine be invited to join NATO, which was bold, considering that Ukraine’s president wasn’t even invited to the NATO summit. Zelensky attended a leaders dinner but was not invited to speak at, or even attend, the summit’s meetings. This year, Zelensky’s argument for NATO membership took a new direction. While the Ankara Summit Declaration, released at the end of the summit, renewed NATO’s ‘unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,’ it did not repeat the pledge made at earlier summits that Ukraine would become a member of NATO.” (07/14/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/zelenskys-strange-trip-to-the-nato-summit
- Small Cameras Can Create a Big Problem
Source: Exiled Policy
by Nick Gambill“The network of ALPRs that is expanding across the country is rife with abuse and raises serious concerns about grand promises of greater security at the expense of serious encroachments on Americans’ civil liberties. The explosion of ALPRs along American roadways has given law enforcement considerable access to data on American motorists and their behavior. That these tools are marketed to agencies in heavily populated areas and constructed along our busiest roads is no coincidence.” (07/14/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/small-cameras-can-create-a-big-problem
- Monitor Amok!
Source: The American Prospect
by Harold Meyerson“There’s a long history of federal government intervention in the internal affairs of unions. The grounds for such interventions have usually run the gamut from ideology and politics (e.g., the Taft-Hartley Act’s purge of Communists from the ranks of union leaders) to corruption (the control of various unions by organized crime, e.g., much of the Teamsters until roughly 1990). But the personal pique of a government official was never really the reason behind any such intervention—until today. In the past three weeks, the federal monitor charged with overseeing the United Auto Workers has become, in effect, the most significant supporter of UAW Vice President Rich Boyer’s campaign to unseat UAW President Shawn Fain in the union’s upcoming quadrennial election, to be decided by a vote of the rank and file in the next few months.” (07/14/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/07/14/monitor-amok-uaw-shawn-fain-investigation/
- Requiem for a Chickenhawk
Source: The Realist Review
by Martin Sieff“[Lindsey] Graham’s supposed transformation into the Apostle of Trump on his personal road to Damascus should have come as no surprise, for it was completely consistent with his entire career of living out one lie after another. As Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman, every word Graham ever uttered was a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ Indeed, everything about Graham was a lie – just as are all the sickly sweet, sentimentalized tears now pouring forth at his passing.” (07/14/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/requiem-for-a-chickenhawk
- The Political Orphanage, 07/15/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
‘I Ask an Amish Guy about Everything.” (07/15/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/i-ask-an-amish-guy-about-everything
- The Fifth Column, episode 566
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Iran Deal Is Dead. The War Is Back.” (07/15/26)
- Cato Podcast, 07/14/26
Source: Cato Institute
“The Amendment That Wouldn’t Bend.” (07/14/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/amendment-wouldnt-bend
- Nonzero, 07/14/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Trump’s Self-Inflicted Iran Quagmire | Robert Wright & Zaid Jilani.” (07/14/26)
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 07/14/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump Is Losing the War for the Strait of Hormuz.” (07/14/26)